new to goats

ok we just got 2 baby yesterday boots and zorro boots is a big eater for shur, but zorro last night and this morning will not take a bottle at all we even tryed adding whole milk to the powder mix please help

Welcome to permies Michael
That sounds pretty serious. Kids should drink a lot and I really hope it'd drinking now.
If there's still problems, I think getting a knowledgeable person to actually examine the animal is a good idea: stock vet, farmer etc.

How old are they? What kind of nipples are you using? Do they have diarrhea ( called scours in animals )?

Sometimes it takes a while for they to get over the shock of moving. Sometimes the switch over from colostrum/milk to replacer is a shock to the system, but not nursing for more than 12 hours starts to be a problem. I use the grey lamb nipples for almost everyone. I use the small black Little Giant brand for kids that are struggling. If they have scours, I give them ReSorb for 2 days. Less than 3 bucks, makes 2 quarts. You will read that you can't raise kids on replacer all over the web. This is just NOT SO! Thousands of kids are raised this way every year. My son was raised on formula (not by choice), and he's an inch taller than me. Almost all babies, human, goat whatever..., will have diarrhea from time to time. The important thing is to keep them hyrdated. If you can't get ReSorb use gatorade or pediolite but they don't really have enough energy in them. Don't worry that they aren't getting the fat and protein that they need. If they have diarrhea, they aren't absorbing it anyway. Once their stomach settles down, they'll catch up. Keep them warm if they haven't started nursing. In the beginning, it's better to underfeed than over feed. Much better.

Check your msgs. I left my phone ifyou need it.

thanks Doug he started taken the bottle yesterday really well he taken 1/2 a liter 2 times a day, forgot to ask them how old thay where were using what the feed store has for goats its a red nipple that screwed on to bottles. we do have a ? tho the other one is now starting to get yellow gunk in his eyes do we need to be concerned or just wipe them out.

Good. The red nipple is fine. Dip a paper towel in warm water and wipe his eye. As long as its yellow it's OK. Sometimes their eyes almost get glued shut. then I dab it a little before I wipe. Wipe their mouths when they're finished eating. Wipe from the bridge of their nose down. That keeps things out of their eyes and nostrils while cleaning the mouth area. Don't wipe from the mouth up towards their nostrils and eyes.
Glad to hear things are going well!

If anyone has a "favorite" bottle baby recipe I'd like to read some of them. I got this recipe from a couple of breeders that raise a lot of goats (over 100 each).

One gallon of whole milk
One can of evaporated milk
8 oz. buttermilk

I have NOT used this formula yet, but they contend that it is works well, the goats love it and tolerate it well.

We use the Pritchard teat nipple...the red and yellow one that attaches to a plastic bottle. Available for about $2 apiece.

We have used this formula with great success:
1 gallon whole cows milk
1 cup heavy/ whipping cream
1 scoop calf pac ( a probiotic powder)

Remove just over 1 cup of milk from the gallon, and add in the whipping cream and probiotic. Shake it up well, then top off the gallon with as much milk as you can fit back in.

It is very important to feed your kids cold or room temperature milk to keep them from overeating.

We use a self feeder bucket, and refill it every morning, using a gallon of frozen water to keep it fresh during the day.
The kids on that formula with the self feeder grew out better than the kids still on their moms!

Carolyn, What age do you wean at? Which self feeder do you use? I'm bottle feeding 12 now. I tried to switch over to a self feeder with the gray nipples with tubes but had a scours outbreak. I went back to bottles to make sure everything was getting clean. I don't think the self feeder was the cause but I didn't want to switch anything up while they were still recovering. Do self feeders save a lot of time? How hard are they to clean? How often do you clean it?

I'm raising these 12 to get a handle on costs for bottle feeding. There are several dairies around me and I can pick up 2 day old bucklings very cheap, 5 bucks a head. I have a lot of browse, so once they're weaned costs go way down. I think there may be a business raising them for the meat market. Right now I have a couple of alpines, la manchas, toggenburgs and saanens. At least that's what they look like, they may mixes. In addition I have an alpine and toggenburg that are 6 months old and just put a 10 month old nubian in our freezer. He was 100 lbs on the hoof and gave us 34 lbs of boneless meat. Had to do the boneless because our freezer is so small.

Thanks for your help!

I wean at around 10-12 weeks. That's when they are developmentally ready to digest regular feed efficiently enough to not need the milk protiens.
I used the multi kid feeder from Hoegger Supply, which has the nipples at the bottom of the bucket. The only problem I had with it was that as the kids get older, they can tear the nipples, and the milk would leak, so I learned to have extras on hand.
I cleaned it every 4 days or so when it was cool out, and every other day when it was hot. When it was hot out, I'd also change the frozen milk jug mid-afternoon.
They are quite easy to clean, just make sure you have a baby bottle brush to get inside of the nipples, and rinse them well.
It saves a ton of time, probably 30 minutes a day for me.
If they start to scour, try adding a teaspoon of baby rice cereal to the bottles. It seems to tighten things up if it's only a milk issue, rather than a pathogen.
That's a great way to start out with goats for meat!

Doug Mac wrote:Carolyn, What age do you wean at? Which self feeder do you use? I'm bottle feeding 12 now. I tried to switch over to a self feeder with the gray nipples with tubes but had a scours outbreak. I went back to bottles to make sure everything was getting clean. I don't think the self feeder was the cause but I didn't want to switch anything up while they were still recovering. Do self feeders save a lot of time? How hard are they to clean? How often do you clean it?

I'm raising these 12 to get a handle on costs for bottle feeding. There are several dairies around me and I can pick up 2 day old bucklings very cheap, 5 bucks a head. I have a lot of browse, so once they're weaned costs go way down. I think there may be a business raising them for the meat market. Right now I have a couple of alpines, la manchas, toggenburgs and saanens. At least that's what they look like, they may mixes. In addition I have an alpine and toggenburg that are 6 months old and just put a 10 month old nubian in our freezer. He was 100 lbs on the hoof and gave us 34 lbs of boneless meat. Had to do the boneless because our freezer is so small.

Thanks for your help!

I wean some of my buck kids (when they're growing very fast) as early as 7 weeks old. That's only as an emergency though, when I desperately needed the milk myself. I like to feed them longer on milk if I have it. I try to make sure they get plenty of good forage early on, to develop good rumen capacity and that gets them off to a good start too. For doe kids I usually keep them on milk until they are 6 months old, and separate them at night so they are hungry and will eat hay and other forage. When they get a lot of milk, they start eating solids late and then their rumen doesn't develop well, which retards their growth later.

Get sufficient knowledge. Thanks guys.